Boardroom networks among Australian company directors, 1976 and 1996: The impact of investor capitalism

Abstract

This article examines the (interpersonal) network of boardroom contacts among the directors of Australia's largest companies in 1976 and 1996. Interlocking directors create an intercorporate network but also an interpersonal, contact network. The network reaches all directors serving on any board that has a connected interlocker/networker on it. The interpersonal network of 1996 is broader, more cohesive and more densely connected than that of 1976. However, there is only minimal change in the density of inter-corporate linkages over these two decades. These findings suggest that, by the late 1990s, internal social organization among the corporate elite in Australia is independent of the political economy of intercorporate relations and changing in directions suggested by Useem's study of `investor capital-ism' in the USA. Australian corporate power structure research needs to study the interaction of these trends with the pre-existing concentrations of corporate control in this country.